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"I spend a lot of time here with awesome people!"
-
caysi hinchcliff (partangel)

Yorick, the GravediggerOmen of War: Yorick’s next attack will deal bonus physical damage and summon a Spectral Ghoul that deals additional damage and moves faster than Yorick’s other ghouls. While the Spectral Ghoul is alive, Yorick moves faster as well.Omen of Pestilence: Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul that arrives with a violent explosion, dealing damage and slowing nearby enemies. While the Decaying Ghoul remains alive, nearby enemies continue to be slowed.Omen of Famine: Yorick steals life from his target and summons a Ravenous Ghoul that heals Yorick for the damage it deals.Omen of Death (Ultimate): Yorick conjures a revenant in the image of one of his allies. If his ally dies while its revenant is alive, the revenant sacrifices itself to reanimate them and give them time to enact vengeance.Unholy Covenant (Passive): Yorick’s attacks deal more damage for each summon that is active. Meanwhile, Yorick’s ghouls deal some percent of Yorick’s Attack Damage and have some percent of his total health.

Annie* Fixed a bug where Molten Shield wouldn't trigger if the damage was shielded

Blitzcrank* When Blitzcrank grabs a champion with Rocket Grab, he will now attempt to attack them as well

Cho'Gath* Feast will now correctly show a particle on an enemy target when they can be killed by it

FiddlesticksDrain* Range increased to 475 from 450* Heal is no longer reduced if the damage is shielded* Dark Wind damage increased to 65/90/115/140/165 from 65/85/105/125/145Crowstorm* Ability power ratio increased to .45 from .4* Channel duration reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2

Galio* Idol of Durand will now correctly increase its damage when the damage taken is shielded

GangplankGrog-Soaked Blade* No longer reduces healing and regeneration, but now slows movement speed by 7%* Now stacks up to 5 times, but duration reduced to 3 seconds from 10* Damage changed to 4-21 from 5-19Parrrley* Fixed a bug where Parrrley could sometimes restore gold to other players* Now applies Grog-Soaked Blade* Raise Morale duration increased to 7 from 6* Cannon Barrage damage increased to 75/120/165 from 65/110/155

GarenPerseverance* Fixed a bug where Perseverance could sometimes activate immediately after taking damage* Now marks Garen as being in combat even if the damage is shielded* Now shows the particle on Garen even if at 100% health

Heimerdinger* Fixed a bug where his turrets would not assist him if damage from an enemy champion was shielded* H-28G Evolution Turret mana cost reduced to 70/80/90/100/110 from 120/125/130/135/140

IreliaTranscendent Blades* Now heals Irelia based on the actual damage dealt (instead of a % of the raw damage dealt), but the heal is not reduced if the damage is shielded* Heal versus Champions increased to 25% from 20%

OriannaClockwork Windup* Fixed a display error on the tooltip.* Fixed a bug which was causing Clockwork Windup to add less damage than intended* Fixed a bug with Command: Protect that was causing the shield particle to not display* Fixed several interactions with clones or unusual movement types

Poppy* When Poppy Heroic charges a champion, she will now attempt to attack the target immediately afterward

Rammus* Fixed a bug where Defensive Ball Curl had an ability power ratio

Renekton* Cull the Meek's heal is no longer reduced if the damage is shielded* Fixed a bug where damage absorbed by a shield wouldn't mark Renekton as in combat

Twisted Fate* Blue Card mana restore is no longer reduced if the damage is shielded* Loaded Dice now deactivates while Twisted Fate is dead* Fixed a bug with Gate where activating Zhonya's Hourglass during the channel time would not interrupt it

Udyr* Mana cost of shifting decreased to 55/50/45/40/35 from 75/65/55/45/35* Turtle Stance now heals Udyr based upon the actual damage dealt (instead of the raw damage dealt), but the heal is not reduced if the damage is shielded* Phoenix stance's activation damage increased to 15/25/35/45/55 from 10/18/26/34/42

Urgot* Fixed a bug with Terror Capacitor where when attacking a champion, it was slowing for less than the tooltip stated* Fixed a bug with Terror Capacitor where when using Acid Hunter with Terror Capacitor, it was slowing based upon Acid Hunter's rank rather than Terror Capacitor (but for the correct 20/25/30/35/40%)

Items* Boots of Mobility will now mark you in combat for receiving/dealing any damage, even if it is shielded* Fixed a bug where Spirit Visage was granting too much bonus regeneration* Philosopher's Stone health regen per 5 reduced to 18 from 22.5 and mana regen per 5 reduced to 8 from 10* Eleisa's Miracle cost increased to 500 from 400* Quicksilver Sash cooldown decreased to 90 from 105* Hextech Revolver spell vamp reduced to 15% from 20%* The gold per 10 component of Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Kage's Lucky Pick, and Avarice Blade is now unique to itself

General* Fixed a bug where minions were playing their particles multiple times when attacking* Updated tooltips for many Champions* Lifesteal and spell vamp are no longer reduced if the damage done is shielded* Healing reductions now reduce lifesteal and spell vamp* Spirit Visage now increases your lifesteal and spell vamp* Maximum gold for killing a player on a long kill streak reduced to 500 gold from 1000* Minimum gold for killing a player on a long death streak reduced to 15 gold from 90 gold* Gold rewards for kills where the target is on a 3 kill or 3 death streak or less should give comparable amounts or even more gold than before* Experience granted for kills is now determined by the dying champion's level. Killing champions higher level than you will now grant more experience while killing champions lower level than you will now grant less experience. Killing equal level champions is unaffected* Wards and Teemo's mushrooms are no longer targetable/manipulated by spells (except Summoner Teleport). This means, for example, that wards will no longer be able to block Rammus' Powerball, Mushrooms will not block skillshots, and Jax is no longer able to Leapstrike onto a ward

This... destroys Evelyn. A lot of people are saying "good!", but it is still rather excessive. I personally don't play her and don't especially like playing against her, but she just wasn't strong enough to justify this level of nerf. When I heard the stun was being changed to a slow, I expected her other abilities to be buffed slightly to compensate since that is pretty huge; didn't expect to see them ALSO nerfed.

I know it is supposed to be a "band-aid solution" until the stealth rework, but this makes her nigh unplayable IMO.

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FiddlesticksDrain* Range increased to 475 from 450* Heal is no longer reduced if the damage is shielded* Dark Wind damage increased to 65/90/115/140/165 from 65/85/105/125/145Crowstorm* Ability power ratio increased to .45 from .4* Channel duration reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2

Seems good. He was pretty clearly a little underpowered, and these are good little buffs. I especially like the clever little idea of reducing the channel time.

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GangplankGrog-Soaked Blade* No longer reduces healing and regeneration, but now slows movement speed by 7%* Now stacks up to 5 times, but duration reduced to 3 seconds from 10* Damage changed to 4-21 from 5-19Parrrley* Fixed a bug where Parrrley could sometimes restore gold to other players* Now applies Grog-Soaked Blade* Raise Morale duration increased to 7 from 6* Cannon Barrage damage increased to 75/120/165 from 65/110/155

Seems pretty good all around. Maybe I won't cringe every time I see someone on my team pick Gangplank now.

A very small buff to one of the weakest high elo champs. (IIRC, he has the worst win/loss ratio above 1600 elo, though he's much more viable at lower elos.) Could probably use a few other small buffs, though I imagine he can be very strong at lower skill levels so they have to dance around that. (I'd say this is also why Master Yi hasn't seen any buffs recently, for example, as he stomps heavily at very low levels.)

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Janna* Tailwind now deactivates while dead

Aww, now the worst Janna in the world still isn't helping the team just by being Janna ;) Seems fine, though - she is one of the strongest champions in the game and a tiny nerf like this makes sense. (And they needed to either remove Janna and TF's passives while dead, or make Zilean's work while dead; that inconsistency was silly and unnecessary.)

Seems fine. Definitely one of the strongest picks during Dreamhack, and these nerfs are not large enough to, well, stop him from still being a very strong pick.

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Jax* Leap Strike attack damage ratio reduced to 0.7 from 1

This one I don't really understand. Jax is generally considered a little underpowered in 5v5, and I don't think he's strong enough in 3s to justify it either. If they didn't like his early burst potential with AD runes, it'd make more sense to lower the base damage a little bit at low levels rather than nerf the ratio.

I've just started actually getting competent with Jax in 5s, too :/ That's ~25 less burst damage at level 1 (and further reductions as I start getting items) which isn't the end of the world, but definitely a bummer. He should still be viable, but I'd argue he wasn't strong enough before for this nerf to really make any sense.

Seems good. His old design had a neat concept, but didn't work well in practice; this ability makes a lot more sense for how he actually got played. (Would've been cool if they figured out a way to make his original concept work out though.)

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MalzaharNull Zone* Damage reduced to 4/5/6/7/8% from 5/6/7/8/9%* Ability power ratio reduced to 1% per 100 ability power from 1% per 80 ability power* Cooldown reduced to 14 seconds from 16* Nether Grasp's ability power ratio reduced to 1.3 from 1.5

Looks about right. A clear nerf to one of the strongest casters, but nothing heavy enough to make him weak or anything.

I can't really argue that the ice blast was insane at level 1 (though I did love it), so that change makes a lot of sense. I feel like the consume nerf goes a little too far though; Nunu is quite strong, but I feel his late game is weak enough that his early game shouldn't be nerfed quite this much. I already put 2 points in consume early, and now that barely brings me above what 1 point did before :/

I've been wondering what took them so long on this. I've been saying since ~1 week after his release that his ult needed a longer cooldown and less damage on it (And that they also should not reduce the slow, so good to see they didn't). Personally I would've reduced the initial damage rather than the damage from standing in it, but their nerf choices are still fine. He will still definitely be strong and I'll still have a lot of fun playing him.

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Swain* Ravenous Flock now heals Swain for 50% of the actual damage he deals (instead of 50% of the raw damage he deals), but the heal is not reduced if the damage is shielded

A subtle nerf, possibly more severe than it looks at first. Assuming I am reading this correctly, this means he'll heal 5-30% less than he previously did against a normal champion without heavy MR (maybe MR runes, maybe Merc Treads, but nothing more), assuming he has MagPen runes and sorc shoes. That is probably more of a nerf than Swain needs, but we'll see how it works in practice I guess.

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Twisted Fate* Fixed a bug with Gate where activating Zhonya's Hourglass during the channel time would not interrupt it

Aw, that was a neat little trick, though not exactly gamebreaking. Probably unintuitive enough to justify its removal I suppose.

Still no fix to Pick a Card automatically attacking minions, as was promised in a previous patch but then removed :/ I don't even play him, but it pains me to see one port in and have his gold card instantly fly to a nearby minion...

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Udyr* Mana cost of shifting decreased to 55/50/45/40/35 from 75/65/55/45/35* Turtle Stance now heals Udyr based upon the actual damage dealt (instead of the raw damage dealt), but the heal is not reduced if the damage is shielded* Phoenix stance's activation damage increased to 15/25/35/45/55 from 10/18/26/34/42

I don't really think of Udyr as especially underpowered, but these changes seem fine. He's probably weaker at high level play than I realize, and this won't really make him that much stronger at low level play but will help him at higher levels a bit.

Yeesh, more Vayne nerfs. I am still not convinced she was ever that overpowered, and this is another solid nerf. I know she was played and banned a reasonable amount at Dreamhack and it is possible I'm still missing something, but I've seen a lot of whining about how OP she is that just doesn't line up with her actual performance in game. She doesn't seem any stronger than Ashe, for example, in the high level games and she has consistently lost more than she's won since release in the low/mid level games.

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VladimirTransfusion* Cooldown adjusted to 12/10/8/6/4 from 12/10/8/6/3* Damage adjusted to 90/125/160/195/230 from 70/115/160/205/250

Wow, that is a much smaller nerf than I expected considering how much talk there was about it. I would expect at least one more small nerf down the road, but I suppose this is a reasonable start. (Slightly more of a buff than I expected at low levels too, but probably fine.)

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Items* Philosopher's Stone health regen per 5 reduced to 18 from 22.5 and mana regen per 5 reduced to 8 from 10* Eleisa's Miracle cost increased to 500 from 400* Quicksilver Sash cooldown decreased to 90 from 105* Hextech Revolver spell vamp reduced to 15% from 20%* The gold per 10 component of Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Kage's Lucky Pick, and Avarice Blade is now unique to itself

A little sad to see the philo stone nerf since I've been using it on my Caitlyn, but I knew it was coming - it is definitely too strong. Might have to switch back to my Meki Pendant, or I might just try the standard Doran's Blade again and aim to harass with auto-attacks more than my Q. Might still be fine to go with philo on her too of course, not certain. (Still plenty worthwhile on my tanky junglers probably...)

Revolver has been kind of awkwardly up and down. Kinda wish they were a little less inclined to jump to clean numbers, because something like 18% is probably about right imo.

Nice little buff to QSS - might see a few of those instead of always seeing Bashee's.

I'm not entirely convinced that stacking gold/10 items is as strong as the meta implies, but I can't really disagree with the change against them either.

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General* Healing reductions now reduce lifesteal and spell vamp* Spirit Visage now increases your lifesteal and spell vamp* Maximum gold for killing a player on a long kill streak reduced to 500 gold from 1000* Minimum gold for killing a player on a long death streak reduced to 15 gold from 90 gold* Gold rewards for kills where the target is on a 3 kill or 3 death streak or less should give comparable amounts or even more gold than before* Experience granted for kills is now determined by the dying champion's level. Killing champions higher level than you will now grant more experience while killing champions lower level than you will now grant less experience. Killing equal level champions is unaffected* Wards and Teemo's mushrooms are no longer targetable/manipulated by spells (except Summoner Teleport). This means, for example, that wards will no longer be able to block Rammus' Powerball, Mushrooms will not block skillshots, and Jax is no longer able to Leapstrike onto a ward

Nice that these healing effects work more like you'd expect them to. A reasonable buff for Spirit Visage, which will make it useful in some new situations while mostly not making it stronger in the old situations (though I'm liking the ideal of Wriggle's + SV on Warwick very much now).

Holy crap that is a huge change for the steaks. Very crazy stuff. Pure feeders will eventually be worth less than a minion kill. I agree that 1k is a bit high of a cap on crazy streaks (the argument that you could be dominating early game completely and then have them rapidly catch up from one kill giving them 1700 gold was valid), but I think the reduction was excessive. I think it is also important that a team behind by 10, 15 kills can still come back and win, and I think this probably nerfs that a little too much. The exp bonus should make up for this partially, but I don't think it'll be quite as much as I'd like to see. Taking the exp bonus into consideration, I'd still want to see the cap at around 600-700 rather than 500.

Another subtle nerf to Jax :( I can't disagree with it though - using wards like this is simply not intuitive, and I definitely support their goal of fixing a lot of these unintuitive interactions.

Looks like the Kayle re-work somehow made it in undocumented; wonder if they didn't mean to run it live yet or something, or if they purposely made it hidden but then put that story about her in the Journal of Justice?

Seems like a pretty good change overall. The other buffs might not be enough with how much the passive was nerfed, but it looks like a good start to make her most interesting and fun to play. We'll see how it works in practice.

When a champ has a new mechanic like this, quick degrading pets, it makes it harder to get a real feel for what his kit is going to be like. It is cool that they are matching a pet champion with a tanky melee, rather than the squishy distance caster which is the usual model for pet classes in other games.

A long distance squishy pet caster could be really frustrating to deal with in the same way that say Maokai's saplings are annoying, long distance safe damage that would be hard to deal with unless you have a very strong closer move.

Looking forward to seeing him in game.

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Shields

These Shield changes seem nice. Little tweaks here and there to make interactions a little more standard.

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Blitzcrank

* When Blitzcrank grabs a champion with Rocket Grab, he will now attempt to attack them as well

Poppy

* When Poppy Heroic charges a champion, she will now attempt to attack the target immediately afterward

Seems like a good quality of life for the ambushers Blitz and Poppy. I will have to ask our blitz player if he even notices

This is a harsh nerf to Eve. I can completely sympathize with the shadowwalk nerf tho. When a fed Eve would initiate on you from stealth with the stun she could easily stun you, get a sheen proc, and then crush you again for a half life bar without you doing a single thing. Super annoying. At least now you can have some control over your destiny, while not being able to escape from her.

Morello I think made a comment about Eve driving off new players. So from the Riot point of view, nerfing her hard is better than loosing the newbies. I think Eve players are just going to have to wait for the stealth remake.

Some small buffs to Fiddle. My favorite is the channel reduction on crowstorm. It will help him with predicting and landing it, while it is still long enough you should be able to stun him if you see him open channelling into a teamfight.

Jarvan is a jerk, so I don't mind seeing him nerfed. The martial cadance nerf is good, he was really the start of this percentage damage getting out of control. I realize that percentage damage is needed to correctly deal with tanks, but it combines in a really ugly way when used on squishy characters.

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Jax

* Leap Strike attack damage ratio reduced to 0.7 from 1

This does seem a bit out of the blue, nerfing a character that is probably a bit underpowered, and certainly only shines in certain circumstances. But Leap Strike is a really strong ability, A big damage gap closer, and with a fully fed Jax, which is terrifying already, the burst just from the jump is ugly. And the nerf doesn't effect him as much if he isnt' fed, so it only really hurts him when he is doing well.

If you watched the season one championships you would think that the only supports in this game were Janna, Sona, Soraka,taric and Zilean. No love for Morgana and Lux. Certainly no love at all for Karma except as a troll pick in the qualifiers.

The new high elo defintion of good support also requires you to be strong without farming, which is why I think that Morg and Lux have fallen behind.

I agree it is shocking that they waited this long to nerf his ulti. The cooldown is probably the hardest part of the nerf, as Rumble doesn't really want to buy cooldown as much as other champions do. The faster he spams the sooner he reaches his overheat. The damage nerfs are smallish, but needed, hopefully they are enough and riot will leave the punk rock yordle alone.

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Udyr

* Mana cost of shifting decreased to 55/50/45/40/35 from 75/65/55/45/35 * Turtle Stance now heals Udyr based upon the actual damage dealt (instead of the raw damage dealt), but the heal is not reduced if the damage is shielded * Phoenix stance's activation damage increased to 15/25/35/45/55 from 10/18/26/34/42

Udyr has fallen out of favor as other jungles have emerged, but I think he is still strong. Making him a bit more manna effiecient early game is nice, because he doesn't really want any manna items (banshee veil perhaps) So his early game can be a little painful, late game he can ignore manna and becomes a cooldown champ.

I'm a little surprised they didn't up the lifesteal from turtle stance to counter the nerf to it, as turtle seemed to be in a good place.

Both Caitlyn and Vayne have too much damage without risk in the lane phase, so I support the tumble nerf, The other nerfs are probably the results of datamining the game, I don't know if those skills are out of line or not.

Another nerf to percent damage, that is one of the no so hidden themes of the patch.

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Items * Philosopher's Stone health regen per 5 reduced to 18 from 22.5 and mana regen per 5 reduced to 8 from 10 * Quicksilver Sash cooldown decreased to 90 from 105 * The gold per 10 component of Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Kage's Lucky Pick, and Avarice Blade is now unique to itself

The Philo stone nerfs arent' that bad when you look at the numbers. still one of the best laning items in the game, and building into the tenacity item really keeps it a viable choice even into late game.

I so rarely take quicksilver, its cooldown time should just be as long as Malz and Dogs ultimate timers are.

Not stacking Gold per 5 is a kind of nerf to the farmless support that I was talking about earlier, those items helped to keep them in wards. But I guess for most toon, having a philo stone and a kages lucky pick is almost as good as two of either one. It does kill the troll pirate build of all averice blades tho!

I wish. Had one on my team earlier today, still built 3 Avarice blades :/

Played a few games this afternoon. Nunu's new consume is kinda of horrifyingly weak. I was a bit relieved when I realized his heal wasn't affected, but even with an early 2nd point in consume I can't one-shot on a friggin' melee minion or the big wraith by mid-game anymore.

Rumble's ult is still terrorizing. I'll note that blue elixirs are a good regular buy on him after you have your Rylei's; very cheap CDR boost.

* When Blitzcrank grabs a champion with Rocket Grab, he will now attempt to attack them as well

Seems like a good quality of life for the ambushers Blitz and Poppy. I will have to ask our blitz player if he even notices

I suspect he will; I'm guessing the motivation here was the occasional missed Power Fist proc after a grab. Failing that, it also makes a Sheen proc automatic.

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(about Gangplank): The loss of heal reduction removes him as a counter to champs like mundo. Leaving you mostly with ignite as the only thing that does it.

The groggy slow is good for some other things, Now you can potentially parrrley a target, and close on them while they are slowed.

Kat and Trist can both cause open wounds, and in a pinch there's also executioner's calling (not that anybody buys that). But you're right, it is a drastic change to him.

I am told that saintvicious picked Gangplank as a counterjungle to Warwick; I have to wonder to what extent that factored into this particular change. saintvicious was also salivating at the prospect of a stackable slow on GP; we'll have to see how brutal it is.

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Udyr

* Mana cost of shifting decreased to 55/50/45/40/35 from 75/65/55/45/35 * Turtle Stance now heals Udyr based upon the actual damage dealt (instead of the raw damage dealt), but the heal is not reduced if the damage is shielded * Phoenix stance's activation damage increased to 15/25/35/45/55 from 10/18/26/34/42

Udyr has fallen out of favor as other jungles have emerged, but I think he is still strong. Making him a bit more manna effiecient early game is nice, because he doesn't really want any manna items (banshee veil perhaps) So his early game can be a little painful, late game he can ignore manna and becomes a cooldown champ.

Udyr's pretty kitable, despite bear stance. He's not bad at ripping people apart in stand-up fights, but I don't think anybody goes toe-to-toe with Udyr if they don't have to.

The changes mostly look like they will give him more flexibility early in the jungle (blue buff less necessary).

I am told that sheen/triforce is a popular item on Udyr; it also provides mana. Late-game it's not like mana was a huge issue for him anyway (costs were the same); this should help his early-game ability to do more than one bear-stance initiation without having to immediately go turtle to recover mana.

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Items * Quicksilver Sash cooldown decreased to 90 from 105

I so rarely take quicksilver, its cooldown time should just be as long as Malz and Dogs ultimate timers are.